September 2010

Hope everyone enjoyed all the pics from PAX Prime (which can be caught here and here btw)! Cuz there’s plenty more to come, this time from…

SPX 2010

So, the question is posed again: how was it? Pretty decent, all things considered. After skipping out on last year’s shindig, Katie and I were eager to get back in the swing of things. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I had butterflies in my stomach leading up. In the end, I blame Etsy; SPX (along with MoCCA) used to be the place for handcrafted, DIY goods, like screen-printed shirts, silkscreened prints, and the such. All of which has since become scarce, thanks to the aforementioned website (same could be said for NYC’s small press show as well). Attract Mode’s offerings, which was somewhat of a throwback in that regard, would either stick out in a good way or bad. Never-mind how we’re also talking about video game oriented goods; there’s a definite crossover, indie comics & indie gaming, but it’s not as wide as mainstream comics & mainstream games. Not helping much was the email that everyone got a few months prior that stated “Listen, this is a comic show ultimately, so we had better see comics from each of you vendors.” A sentiment that I could certainly appreciate, yet also fond… unnecessary? Why not let the audience decide who is fit or not?

In the end, I was mostly interested in hanging with friends that I rarely get to see (namely, Pat, Ed, and Lamar) and maybe make some new acquaintances. So mission accomplished on both fronts! BTW, don’t expect nearly as many pictures here as in my PAX breakdown; the camera I had, coupled with the yellow-ish walls plus not exactly dark, yet not quite bright either lighting that made up most of that weekend, left most pics a mess. Still, this one of myself and the gf came out alright…

… Not only did Katie have one new issue of Nurse Nurse to promote, but two! And if you want to get technical, since we were again absent at SPX 2009, this year saw three brand spanking new issues starring Genma. As for myself, THREE made its first appearance at the same show where I first debuted the FORT90ZINE period. Plus SPX is where I first sold my very own comic, aka #1 of UNLUCKY, hence why I have such fondness for the show. Which I was positively shocked to hear people bring up. All I can say is, for the time being, the project is on-hold. But it’s not dead! Yet.

Oh, so one of the highlights of SPX was most definitely this person…

… Her name was Michele and she mentioned how she had stumbled across my second zine in the jungle that is the mini comics and zine section at Forbidden Planet. Michel said some of the nicest, most sweetest things ever, it seriously blew me away! I always love hearing from folks who are happy that someone else has such fond memories of the game scene that once was and took the time to actually make an account of it. Anyhow, as we spoke, she casually made mention of how awesome it was that we both shared the same friends, specifically “Dave and Hilary.” So all of a sudden it hit me, and I asked, “Excuse me… Michela? Are you otherwise known as Hamlet Machine?” And indeed it was! Was also a thrill to tell her how much I enjoy her comic (even though yaoi and dudes kissing each other in general is totally not my thing, the story and art are simply top notch) and how much I talk it up with folks (who ended up feeling the same exact way). And pretty much anyone who meets her agrees that she’s the nicest, the most gentlest soul ever. One who also happens to draw comics about dudes biting each other’s penises in space.

Another reason for the relative lack of pics was how I was actually way too busy to explore! Business was good, far better to a certain degree than PAX, believe it or not. So next thing you know, day one was done and over with. Here I am striking a pose with Colleen, post day one, on our way back to our hotel rooms…

Like I said, taking pictures in that space was a real pain in the ass, at least sans flash, so we had to hold poses while Katie attempted retake after retake. Which I’m guessing with a bit uncomfortable for some…

Afterwards was dinner at Arby’s, which was awesome (also had lunch at Arby’s earlier that day, cuz, you know, Arby’s is once again awesome). Then it was off to the Ignatz; truth be told, since both Lamar and myself are so out of the loop, we were far too engrossed in Dragon Quest 9 to pay too much attention (though congrats to the winners and all that jazz). Sucks that he didn’t do his Kanye West shtick for the whole room (and too bad I can’t say “I wish he had said such-and-such had the best mini comic, again due to not being so tied into the indie comics world as of late)…

The ceremony was immediately followed by the usual hunt for the dude with all the drink tickets and contemplating all the fun that one could have with the chocolate fondue fountain. I totally would have tried to dip one of the sliders in the coco fountain (and then attempted to digest it) if not for the fact that I was way too full from Arby’s. Anyway, me with Chris Duffy, who looks like this only 36% of the time…

For whatever reason, Colleen was hiding in the palm tree, from someone, something…

The night as a whole was a blur. I recall watching Lamar and Mar? (who made it out to the east coast, specifically for his first taste of the show, and I was super happy to see him two weekends in a row) go at it via dueling drawings of Vegeta. Also, almost fell down a flight of stairs and breaking a leg cuz I stepped on some dude’s haphazardly placed pair of crutches.

Onto day two: while waiting for folks to accompany us for breakfast, we discovered the hotel lobby PCs had zero restrictions whatsoever (usually you can only go to MSN, Yahoo, or Gmail). Which Katie was more than happy to take advantage of…

… Breakfast was at the dinner btw, and NOT Arby’s. Only cuz it wasn’t open by then! I forget where I got lunch; I think it was Arby’s again, no joke.

Anyway, decided to finally do a little walking around on day two. First stop, the Comics Bakery of course; here’s Raina and Dave…

John and Jen (as you can, at this point I said “fuck it” and decided to use the flash, red eyes be damned)…

Here’s Sally Bloodbath, who was right next to us. Whereas I barely left the table, she was behind hers maybe 5 minutes for the entire weekend. Which sucked cuz she’s a blast to be around!

Though I’m super glad I made it to the Ad House table, where Lamar was stationed. He had various drawings, including this famous image from Ninja Gaiden 2….

… Did I pick it up? Does the Pope crap in the woods? And this is easily the best picture I have ever taken of Katie…

And next thing you know, SPX 2010 was in the history books. Overall a fun show! My chief complaint is that it just seemed to go by so fast; didn’t get a chance to hang and band with nearly as many folks as I had hoped. Though everyone was ultimately way busy, doing their things; from what I gathered, at least from my pals at least, business was great all around, which is obviously great news for the normally volatile world of small press. Best of all, there was none of drama that I was expecting, which was unfortunately one of the reasons why we didn’t go last year. But we soon realized that haters gonna hate, and no need to let them rain on our parade. So expect Katie and I next year!

What SPX wrap-up would be complete without a look at the haul? Which keeps getting smaller and smaller…

… I guess the real stand-out would have to be Bear Fight, an anthology that’s all about bears! Speaking of which, really need to find out if Bear Bear 2 ever got produced. But regarding why this year’s assortment is so tiny; again, not enough time to look around, plus the knowledge that I have about seven Container Store bins filled with comics from past shows that I have yet to touch. First and foremost, I really need to get organized, cuz I’m no longer making the mistake of buying the same book (as awesome as it might be) for the second or third time.

And The Rest Of September

May as well pass along pics from the rest of this past month. Why the hell not, right? Let’s kick things off with… and speaking of kick, as in Kickstarter… you guys did hear that Babycastles Manhattan met its fund raising goal, right? But once again, we still need help!!! Though also again, there’s still plenty of awesome incentives still up for grabs, like the signed copies of Katamari from the creator himself! And here’s everyone’s first look at such awesomeness; I was there when Kunal picked them up from a pal of his who just came back from Japan. Isn’t it beautiful?

… The all-Mexican spread was, not surprisingly, quite amazing. And I made two new friends to boot; a dude that acted as video editor and his girlfriend who apparently helps run a coffee shop in Williamsburg…

… Though the ones that had the most fun were most definitely El Elegido and La Parka…

Here’s La Parka beforehand, watching the behind the scenes short for the game. As Katie sez: “Anything La Parka does is funny!”

As for the game itself?

… It’s not half bad! A fairly strong effort for a bunch of first timers. Also, enthusiasm counts for a lot in my book, and you can tell that everyone involved absolutely loves lucha to death. It’s actually quite the historic release as well; the game marks the very first mainstream release from Central and South America. Previously, any games to come from those regions (and make no mistake, gaming is BIG down there), it’s always been rom hacks or freeware titles at best. Though it should be noted that I’m fairly biased; I love Mexican wrestling, to a blind degree, and therefore had more than enough fun just mashing buttons. How it all comes together as a complete package is what’s ultimately most important, and the jury is still out on that one. I’m just glad there’s an alternative to the beyond tired Raw Vs. Smackdown offerings we get year after year (and now more than ever I’m bummed by the recent draught in Japanese wrestling games; still not sure what the exact reason for that might be).

The following Friday was Travis’s birthday, which went down at Barcade, a place that everyone knows I love to make fun of, including the birthday boy! Bottom-line: it has a nice selection of old games, along with a decent selection of beer, and provided you’re in and out before the annoying drunken hipster rush around 1am, it’s not a half bad place. Plus any place is all right with the right group of friends. Unfortunately, Katie wasn’t feeling so hot so we couldn’t stay long, and I therefore wasn’t able to snap too many pics; was hoping to get some of Colleen rocking Crystal Castles! Instead, here’s a fairly crappy Super Pac-Man clone (yeah, I know) that Katie gave a spin…

… At least the accompanying artwork was rather keen. And that following Sunday was a Chikara show with Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo! Their first NYC show proper, in Brooklyn. We had both gotten our first taste of the promotion at the Dragon Gate USA show last summer, and even though he was less than impressed by their performance (he’s not into the Mexican style), Steve was still up for seeing the total package. The verdict? It was alright. There was just a bunch of minor issues which I guess one should come to expect with any indie show (wasn’t as rough as your average WUW show at the very least). Again, perhaps its my bias, or maybe because it’s simply exotic, but I’m far more forgiving when in Mexico they execute one powerhouse move after another, stuff that should logically end a match, yet does not, to the point that nothing makes sense. Though the star attraction, the main event, more than made up for any deficiencies. It was the United States debut of Manami Toyota, widely acknowledged as the greatest female wrestler in the entire world…

… Despite pushing 40, she sure as hell lived up to her legendary status. The power of pro wrestling is watching a five foot something Japanese woman beat up a close to seven foot musclebound dude and have it seem completely plausible. And it totally was. Here’s part one and part two of a match of hers, circa the early 90s, which many agree is one of the best female wrestling matches of all time. Even if you could give a rat’s ass about wraslin’, I implore everyone to give it a whirl (especially those that love to see chicks kick legitimate ass).

From pics featuring pro wrestling, to someone playing an arcade game, the cycle repeats: last week was Hilary‘s belated birthday dinner and drink-fest, which primarily consisted of sake (of course). Afterwards we got hit with the drunk munchies and made our way to Crif Dogs; aside from making fun of the douchebags that showed up for the “hidden bar” inside, we decided to play a few rounds Double Dragon (they have an old arcade cab of it, and more like Hilary wanted to play and demanded that I join in)…

… Pro-tip, don’t bother: you can’t go down with the player one stick, and I forget Hilary’s issue was, but that side is busted too.

I guess that’s it? Next time I’m gonna try to address all the stuff that’s been going on in the world of gaming, since it’s been way too long! First and foremost, will explain why I believe Tetsuya Mizuguchi is starting to remind me of Stephen Spielberg. You know, how basically Rez is to Child of Eden as Jaws is to Schindler’s List. Though (and this is reminder), the grand opening of Babycastles Manhattan is just around the corner, as is the New York Comic Con where I’ll be presenting! October is going be the craziest month eva…

PAX Prime 2010 (continued)

It didn’t really hit me how big PAX Prime was till I went outside to score a bite to eat…

… The entire city was crawling with gamer dorks at every street corner. Including cosplayers; caught this Merly Silverberg about the cross the street (the still cute MGS1 version, before she became mannish in MGS4)….

It’s a Daft Punk!

Back inside, I ran into this totally amazing zora get-up. The eyes actually blinked!

And here’s Frank West…

The always popular nurse from Silent Hill…

Back on the show floor, I was blown away by the Castle Crashers arcade unit; the HD display contained inside was HUGE…

Like I said before, sorta avoided all the big name games. Instead, concentrated on the indie crop, and quite a few gems could be found. Like Retro City Rampage…

Then you had Solace, which could be best described as a Cave shmup and flOw. As the creators told me, it’s not so much a bullet hell but “bullet heaven”…

I unfortunately never found the time to play Monaco…

… Nor Super Meat Boy, nor the new Jonathan Blow games. I know, I know. BUT, did get the chance to finally check out Retrograde…

… Game of the show for me, most definitely. For those who have never heard of it, it’s basically a reverse shump; everything is going backwards in time, so the primary action is to make sure your ship is in the right position to receive bullets that were expelled during the normal flow of time. In that sense, it basically becomes like Guitar Hero/Rock Band, since there are three colored lanes and is very rhythm oriented (guitar controllers are supported). Coming out eventually for PSN. And maybe also XBLA, which I hope, since all my Rock Band gear is for the 360.

Meanwhile, over at the Nintendo booth, didn’t play a thing due to the long wait for everything. Which meant no new Kirby for me, but I at least got the chance to gawk at it…

Now, despite it not being my thing, I could totally understand the long-ass lines for, say, Halo Reach. But for Metroid: Other M, a game that had already been released? Boggled my mind. At least the booth had the rather delectable looking Zero Suit costume from the equally superb live action commercial on display…

All throughout the convention you could find large assortments of folks, sprawling out in beanbag chairs and engaging in multiplayer adventures in Dragon Quest 9…

… Unfortunately, was never able to get close enough to see what was in that displayed, seen way towards the back. Oh well. Meanwhile, upstairs, in the free-play console gaming room was where I found this…

… Which most of you have probably already seen by now via my post a week and a half ago. And because all my other pics within the console gaming room came out like crap (am super lucky the ones of the R2 unit came out fine), here’s a not so bad one of the PC one…

Every year they have a contest to see how has the most tricked out PC case mod. And here was this year’s winner, in the form of a working scooter…

Each year PAX also sponsors a… get this… dress up your My Little Pony contest. Here we have last year’s winner…

Back at the table; here’s Mar? doing a Pokemon sketch while sitting on a chair that has both a Genesis 2 and Sega CD 2 that either Cory S passed along to Adam (he had one just lying around, not doing much with it)…

That’s also where I finally met Ashely Davis, and dressed up as Prinny no less!

… Here’s a side view of her most excellent garb…

There was also a Peter Pan found near our table (who was happy that I knew who she was supposed to be; everyone had been mistakenly calling her Link)…

Unfortunately he didn’t stick around for long and totally missed his biggest fan. Who at least left behind a little piece of himself…

Pete also totally missed Adam trying to eat his new Genesis/Sega CD combo…

It was time again to call it a day. Afterwards was dinner with the Fangamer crew, then drinks with Cory, Corey, Mar?, and Jacob, plus John Green (who was part of the PAX 10 indie circle, to help promote Puzzle Bots) joined us! That night was also when I ran into a Spaceballs cosplayer, a dude dressed up as Barf…

We all ended up walking up north, away from downtown and towards the college area (I think), to some bars that the natives we were with frequent. It was quite the trek, but it was no big thing for the dudes (nor myself as a hardcore pavement pounder), and that’s when it hit me: I was with folks who can deal with Seattle sans an automobile! They either just walk or use mass transit, an idea that seemed completely preposterous to past friends when I asked if I could live in the Emerald City in the same fashion as I do in the Big Apple (and I basically took their word for it). Which now makes my idea of returning back to my home state no longer such an insane idea. Though that’s still quite a few years off… but it’ll be nice to know that I have some cool new folks to hang out with if I ever do so!

Anyway, onto day three; much like the previous two mornings, the cast from Halo Reach made sure our area was safe and sound…

The first cosplayer of the day was dressed as a character that everyone knows I’m gaga for, Claire Redfield…

I found C. Viper and Juri just hanging out by the console gaming room floor…

Saki and Aya from OneChanbara…

A Pokeman and her trainer…

And a bunch of Team Rocket members…

… In case anyone was wondering: the overabundance of female cosplayer pics as compared to male ones. What else can I say? There were hardly any dudes dressed up, don’t ask me why. Hell, I barely saw any dressed up as the Team Fortress 2 clan, that’s almost a given at any convention. Though there were plenty of dudes where these silly looking construction cones, given out as part of some Plants vs Zombie’s promotion (I think). Anyway, a pair of pics from the MMO portion of the show floor; I thought these EVE Online models were fairly hawt…

… And I’ll admit it; I stood around for way too long, watching folks play some Warcraft-like game (could be the real deal, I honestly don’t know) on the gigantic screen…

Back at the Attract Mode table, here’s Cory S showing off EXP, aka the greatest game zine that the whole world has yet to experience (yet). And which he only had one copy of, the bastard…

… I cannot emphasize enough how f’n beautiful the thing is. And here’s Corey L with some Street Fighters…

So in addition to his prints, plus a few mini comic/zine, Corey was selling buttons. All of which were contained in this…

Eventually, that was that; PAX was officially over! As Adam and I packed things up, the place quickly become a ghost town, hence why I really have no idea how Cory S got ahold of this Mega Man arm cannon…

The very last pic from the show…

… Like I said before, PAX Prime 2010 was a mixed bag. Attract Mode didn’t do nearly as well as we had hoped, but a bunch of new business opportunities came about during the trip, so it wasn’t a total loss. Plus I got to hang with Adam yet again, which is always tons of fun, plus made a bunch new friends, easily the best part! We”ll be back next year, for sure, but with one key addition: our women folk, front and center. Cuz the strong sales during day one, when Jen De La Vegetables was around, made one simple fact crystal clear; conventions don’t have booth babes for nothing!

BTW, I didn’t even get the chance to talk about the nightmare it was getting out. I guess for those details, simply go back a few weeks in my Twitter feed, in which I live-blogged how my luggage almost got stolen, right in front of me, in a crowded city bus in Harlem, on my way to the airport (which I swear to God I will NEVER do again; the amount of money saved was so not worth the aggravation). As for the most condescending bags of pretzels ever that highlighted the crappy themselves (btw, do yourself a favor and avoid Air Tram like the plauge as I’ll be doing from this point forward) would take too long to explain, without visual aides.

But enough about PAX, onto SPX! To be concluded (right over here to be exact)…

Oh Jesus, Tokyo Game Show is already old news, and I’ve yet to file my PAX and SPX reports! Time to fix that…

PAX Prime 2010

So, how was it? Truth be told, the whole shebang was a fairly mixed bag. For starters, I’m glad I can finally say that I’ve been to the new mecca for gaming dorks across the United States (with the previous one being E3, which I’ve still never been to, but considering all complaints about what it’s become, and not just from whiny game journalists, I’m no longer interested). But I was there primarily for Attract Mode related business, and on that end, things were not so rosy. Given how amazing Adam and I did in Boston, at PAX East, aka the B show, it only made sense that we’d do even better in Seattle, at PAX Prime, aka the A show. Well…

For a variety of reasons, sales did not meet expectations, with location being the prime culprit. In Boston we were right next to the performance area, which attendees couldn’t possibly miss on their way to the exhibition hall, even if they tried. Whereas this time our spot was some distant corner; still relatively close to where the action was, yet far away enough to not be noticed. Making matters worse was how there was literally 17 different entrances and exits to the expo space, meaning there was zero flow-through as it pertained to foot traffic. Better yet, the maps provided made absolutely zero sense; I can’t tell you how many friends and colleagues flat out could not find our table and simply gave up after a solid day or two of determined searching. It was impossible to locate anything overall; I wasn’t the one who kept going around in circles on the expo floor, at times desperate to find an exit (despite the aforementioned abundance of them) and panel attendance from was apparently abysmal as well because they too were difficult to find. Though maybe no one wanted to deal with the two hour wait for one, which seems to be the minimum at any convention these days. It just so happened that everyone thought the same thing!

Ultimately, the real nail in the coffin was the overall situation in bandland (home-base for all the musical acts, to sell merch and stuff, which we were part of). Most of our profits at East was made during the evening hours, when the exhibits were closed and the music was happening. Since we were once again right next door, Adam and I caught everyone who was milling about, especially those not into whomever was playing at that moment. Each night we were up till 2am doing business, and expected history to repeat itself. Meanwhile at Prime, because the show as a whole had become so big, all music moved off site to an opera house several blocks away. It would have made sense to be relocated as well, except for one reason: that other venue wanted a 33% cut of all revenue generated, highway robbery to say the least. So everyone decided to stick around the main convention center and see how that would go; Adam and I ended up closing shop around 8pm both Friday and Saturday nights, far earlier than planned (sure the console and pen & paper free play rooms were jam packed with folks till three in the morning, but those were even further away location-wise). At least one fellow exhibitor thought about setting up a tiny table outside the venue, on the street, yet nothing came of it I believe.

Well, since our evenings were free, did Adam and I try catching some of the performances then? Not really; aside from having the exact same line-up at Boston, that new performance space was tiny as hell, and because it was a place for “classy” music (it’s an opera house), all the seats were bolted down, making that party atmosphere everyone was trying to achieve almost impossible. Then you had all the technical issues, which were persistent throughout the convention; our only consolation was how almost everyone else directly connected to the event had an equally frustrating weekend. Still, in the end, we did okay, mostly due to the fact that our table was literally bursting at the seams with so much awesomeness, most of it brand new…

Highlights included the first Attract Mode related appearances of both my latest zine and Mathew Kumar’s, as well as the long-awaited North American debut of two from Japan, 8bit Love and 8bit Fighters… that brand new print by Katie, along with one for Canabalt, plus a pair from Corey Lewis… and let us not forget the ultra hawt Killer 7 shirt from Cory Schmitz! Which was the very first thing sold on day one, by a dude dressed as Travis Touchdown!

Watching the eyes bulge out of Grasshopper fanboys and fangirls when they first laid eyes on the tee and went “Wait, is that a Killer… OH MY GOD IT IS!” never got old.

So the show definitely had it’s heartwarming moments! Once again, Adam and I were the gracious guests of Two Player Productions, and we were more than happy to hock their wares, including the super fab, and just released on DVD, Reformat the Planet! It also meant a chance to hang with Paul Owens, along with Jenn De La Vega…

… She had with her a brand new, white DSi and man was I ever jealous. If not for the fact that I’ve purchased so many DSiWare games, and how they are not transferrable at all, I would have dumped my black model ages ago. Anyhow, back to cosplayers, despite our table being somewhat hard to track down, they still managed to find us. Highlights from day one include Leeloo…

Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 (not Advent Children or Dissidia, but most definitely the PSone original)…

Guile!

And because we were right next to Anamanaguchi, there was of course a steady stream of female admirers. Like this trio of Eva from Snake Eater, the new female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable, but as a cat, and her random catgirl pal…

Though easily the best part of the weekend, one that made up for any disappointing sales numbers, were all the awesome new friends I made! Had the intense pleasure of hanging and banging with Cory Schmitz, Jacob Ferguson, Corey Lewis, and Mar? Odomo pretty much the entire time. Here I am with the later two, aka my new b-fries…

Both Corey and Mar? were Attract Mode’s special guest artists; they autographed their awesome wares for customers, plus drafted promotional materials to help let everyone on the expo floor know where the hell we were…

In addition to sketching Pokemans in his mini comic, Mar? would also give you a tattoo upon request…

Easily the hardest sell was the hand-woven Eliss scarves, which cost about $80 a pop (but trust me, they are SO worth it). Here’s what it looks like (outside of its rather phallic looking container)…

… And here it is being modeled by Mr. Lewis…

Oh, so early on, there was this big box of donuts just sitting out in the open, on an empty table nearby. It was from Voodoo Donuts, which I’ve long heard of from small press pals who do Stumptown. How it randomly appeared at a video game convention in Seattle is anyone’s guess! Anyhow, we all helped ourselves and it most definitely lived up to the hype. But that was in the morning, as things were winding down in the PM, I rediscovered the box, underneath a pile of junk destined for the trash heap, and how there was still a few left inside…

… Which we all once again indulged in. Never-mind if it was essentially garbage, they were still fresh! And delicious. BTW, another food item that would also blow my mind that same trip was… hot dogs! Believe it or not, the best dogs can be found in Seattle, hands down. Previously, it was at assorted spots in Jersey; as excellent as some stands might be in NYC, for the most part, hot dogs here are fairly overrated.

Well, once Adam and I decided to call it a night (again, way earlier than expected), we continued our tradition established at Pax East by decompressing to some Disney Channel sitcoms at our hotel room. Afterwards, we rejoined our brethren at a nearby water hole; another fun part of PAX was constantly running into familiar faces that I normally only see at press events but in the wild, like Seth Killian from Capcom and Jennie Sue from 2K! Plus I finally got the chance to meet face-to-face Patrick Klepek from EGM (aka my new boss over there) and Jake Kazdal (aka the only gaijin to work on Rez, and whom I interviewed for Gamasutra, gosh, five years ago).

The highlight at the bar was Cory’s Dingoo, which he had fetched from home after hearing that I once thought about picking one up. And I still might! Then it was off to Anamanaguchi’s after party, at their hotel room. For whatever reason, running on a MacBook Pro was looping footage of Ary from band, shirtless and playing his guitar, from earlier that morning/afternoon…

… And thus was day one. Onto day two! Here’s both myself and Adam in the morning, ready for some action…

As expected, there were tons more cosplayers to be found on Saturday. Here we have a little sister from BioShock…

… With the best part being this…

Has there ever been a more unusual pair? Wicket the Ewok and Faith from Mirror’s Edge…

So another pal that was made at PAX was Andreas Tekus, who runs Greightbit, a Game Boy modification and circuit bending shop. He was brought onboard courtesy of the two Pauls, and was the perfect fit…

A look at some of the modded Game Boy and related hardware he had for sale…

… In all my years, I have yet to encounter a modded Game Boy Player! And as already noted, DMGs are not his only game….

Another popular item was the Loud Object‘s Noise Toys; folks simply couldn’t help but wonder what in the heck they were all about. Like this dude, who also was kind enough to share with the whole world what he was hearing. Or something like that…

Guess now might be a good time to hit the show floor? Truth be told, really didn’t test drive all that much, mostly due to the fact that I was having far much fun with the rest of the Attract Mode posse! That and how virtually everything was a two hour wait in line to play. Plus most of the offerings were not my cup of tea; you can forget about asking me what I thought about Duke Nukem Forever, since I didn’t care about it before, and sure as hell didn’t care about it then!

The only big publisher game that I was truly interested in was Rez 2, aka Child of Eden, which meant dealing with Ubi Soft’s stellar PR team (otherwise known as the Frag Girls, lulz). And as noted in the past, they all seem to hate my guts. Here’s an actual conversation that went down between myself and Boobie Soft Bimbo #34:

me:“Hi there! I heard that Child Of Eden could be found here?”

Frag Girl: [in a very annoyed toned] “Excuse me?”

me:“Child of Eden?”

Frag Girl:“Never heard of it.”

me:“Really? Because, you guys are publishing it.”

Frag Girl:“What?”

me:“You know, the new Q Entertainment game? By Tetsuya…”

Frag Girl: [starting to sound pissed off] “Who are you again?”

me:“Umm… I’m a game journalist…”

Frag Girl: [sounding like she wants to flat out punch me] “Who do you write for.”

me:“Gamasutra, GameSetWatch, Heay.com, EGM…”

Frag Girl: [sounding like she doesn't believe me] “It’s not here.” [then makes a phone call on her Black Berry, pretending I'm not even there]

… In the end, someone did indeed miss their flight or something, hence why it wasn’t on-hand as advertised and she wasn’t lying like I thought she was. But can anyone blame me for thinking otherwise?

Moving on, and regarding the big name games that were indeed on-hand, I certainly had fun watching people play the new Mortal Kombat…

I’d be far more excited over Yakuza 4 if not for the feeling that Sega will gimp the domestic release, once again…

Front Mission Evolved was a game that I had been interested in, since I’ve been getting into mecha games as of late, though a trusted source tells me it blows. Looked nice at least…

Final Fantasy 14 was also playable, and I have to wonder if every attendee was trying to create very Italian looking women on purpose or if it was a huge coincidence…

Another title that I was actually interested in was Marvel Vs Capcom 3, but the crowd was so big that I couldn’t snap a good pic. Instead, here’s a look at the Ghost Tricky display…

… Unfortunately, no one could confirm for me if those will be pre-order bonuses or not. And here we have Okamiden headphones, which one can actually purchase this sec according to one Capcom rep (though the vendor’s name escapes me)…

In one of the far corners of the expo was Pink Gorilla, Seattle’s biggest indie game specialty store, which deals heavily in retro and import goodness, plus assorted knickknacks like toys and figures. It’s basically the Pacific Northwest equivalent of Video Games New York, which is a staple of any fan convention here in the east coast…

… I casually mentioned to Corey how I bought a copy of Twin Bee Collection for the PSP from them while in San Fran two years ago, at Wonder Con, and he said how it could have been him who handled the transaction! He used to work for them, which explains why they host Seedless on their site!

And on the other side of the show floor was the always amazing Fangamer guys and gals. Here’s their prototype E tank mug that got a bunch of folks all hot and bothered…

Though what personally got me all excited was their iPad app that was used for credit card sales, as well as to keep track on inventory! God, Adam and I are SO jealous of how well they do things!

… Alright, I’ve hit my quota for pics for one blog post. To be continued (for the lazy types, or those unaware of the forward arrow at the top of this post, part two can be found here)!